Buying Green IT: The Green IT Criteria You Need to Consider

By M. David Stone |
Posted 2008-11-07

Buying Green IT: The Green IT Criteria You Need to Consider

If your company has decided to focus on sustainability, you're almost
certainly including green criteria in your buying decisions for IT hardware.
Odds are you've set requirements for things such as energy use and
recyclability-specifying that all new desktop systems meet Energy Star requirements,
for example, or that the manufacturer provide a recycling program. That's a big
step forward, but it's important to understand that it's just a start.

One of the less obvious, but potentially more important, green strategies is
to add a requirement that the manufacturers you buy from are also taking
sustainability issues seriously. After all, if everyone buys only from
manufacturers that are making a serious effort to go green, it will only
encourage other manufacturers to do the same. Here are some of the things you
might want to ask the companies you buy from. Not so incidentally, if your
company is serious about committing to sustainability, it might want to
consider adopting some of these ideas itself.

1. Does the Company Have an Official Sustainability Policy?

As the old saw goes, actions speak louder than words. That said,
however, having an official corporate sustainability policy indicates an
awareness of green issues and a stated intention to take them into
account.

Canon, for example, has had a written Canon
Group Environmental Charter since 1993, most recently updated in
2006. Among other points, it includes an intent to buy products that have
a lower environmental burden and also encourages the collection and recycling
of Canon's own products at the end of their lifetimes. Ask the companies you
deal with if they have their own formal policies. If they do, ask whether
they're posted on the Web, so you can see them.

2. Who's in Charge of Sustainability Issues?

Having a corporate concern for sustainability is all well and good, but
knowing who's in charge can tell you a lot about how much the company really
cares about turning that concern into action. For example, InfoPrint (the
joint venture between IBM and Ricoh) has a chief
sustainability officer. As the company points out, putting a high-level
official in charge of green issues helps ensure that both the individual and
the issues have the clout internally to make a difference.

3. Does the Company Make an Effort to Educate?

Arguably nothing tells you how seriously a company takes green issues as its
commitment to educating both its employees and potential customers on the
subject. Teaching employees the importance of sustainability will tend to
make them sensitive to green issues on the job. And once you've taught
customers that sustainability matters, it will be hard to persuade them to buy
products that don't take it into account.

Canon, for example, includes increasing the environmental awareness of its
employees in its charter, as well as "encouraging environmental protection
initiatives on an individual level." Outside of the company, Canon
has donated textbooks on green issues to Japanese schools and has participated
in seminars and forums on the subject. In the United
States and Canada,
it has sponsored an environmental competition, the Canon Envirothon, for high
school students since 1997. Ask the companies you deal with what they do
to educate employees and consumers about green issues.

Research, Product and Packaging

4. Does the Company Sponsor Environmental Research?

Another telling measure of how much a company cares about sustainability is
whether it invests in research on the subject. Xerox, for example, likes
to point to its funding of environmentally related research at various
universities around the world.

One project, at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse,
N.Y., is looking at ways to create
biodegradable plastics from sources such as trees, switchgrass and corn
stalks. The eventual results of research like this could eliminate both
the need to use oil for plastics and the problem of non-degradable plastics
clogging the oceans and landfills. Most large companies fund
research. Ask the companies you buy from if they have a program to fund
research aimed at sustainability issues in particular.

More and more companies are taking steps to increase their energy
efficiency, reduce their carbon footprint and minimize the waste going to
landfills. Find out what, if anything, the companies you deal with have
done. (And consider doing some of these things in your own company.)
Possibilities range from simple things such as programming lighting systems in
existing facilities to match work schedules all the way to designing new
buildings from the ground up-or retrofitting old buildings-to be as energy-efficient
as possible.

6. What Has the Company Done with Its Products and Packaging?

It's also worth asking what steps a company is taking to increase energy
efficiency, reduce the carbon footprint and minimize the waste going to
landfills from its products. It's certainly a plus if the model you buy
has, say, an Energy Star rating. But it's even better if the manufacturer
is committed to having all of its future products earn the same rating.

Also ask if the manufacturer has made an effort to minimize package size and
weight as well as increase the percentage of both recycled and recyclable
material in the packaging and the products. Smaller size and lower weight
let more products ship in the same physical space and with less energy cost per
product. And, of course, the more material that gets recycled, the less is
left over to go into a landfill.

Do They Practice What They Preach and Sell?

7. Does the Company Have Any Stated Sustainability Goals?

Some companies have official long-term goals for energy efficiency or other
key sustainability issues. Xerox, for example, set a goal in 2005 to
lower its worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent (from 2002 levels)
by 2012, even while growing the company. In 2007, it announced that it
had already exceeded the original goal and was now aiming at a 25 percent
reduction (compared with the original 2002 levels once again) by 2012.
Ask whether the company has set any goals for itself and whether it has a track
record of setting and meeting goals in the past.

8. What Programs Does the Company Take Part In?

Find out what environmental programs the companies you deal with participate
in, and research the programs if you're not familiar with them. Two that
are worth keeping in mind are the EPA SmartWay and BRT
(Business Roundtable) Climate RESOLVE programs. (RESOLVE is an acronym
for Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary
Efforts.)

The EPA SmartWay transportation programs apply to products and services that
reduce transportation-related emissions, resulting in "significant,
measurable air quality and/or greenhouse gas improvements." EPA SmartWay
partners include both shippers (Canon, for example) and transportation
companies. You might want to ask the companies you buy from if they are
SmartWay partners or use transportation companies that are.

As may be obvious, the questions here are nowhere near exhaustive and aren't
meant to be. Different companies can take totally different approaches to
green issues, yet still qualify as making significant strides toward
sustainability. So be sure to ask an open-ended question about what else
the company is doing on green issues. And be prepared to judge each company
by the mosaic of everything it does, rather than focusing on a few specific
items.